Arctic Cold Blankets Midwest, Freezing Routines

Slide Show | Dangerously Low Temperatures in the Midwest A so-called polar vortex was accompanied by the coldest weather in decades.

Joshua Lott / Getty Images

By CHRISTINA CAPECCHI and STEVEN YACCINO

January 6, 2014

MINNEAPOLIS — Hildagard Omete, 36, a mother of three who has been unemployed for a year and a half, went job hunting on Monday.

Sitting at the public library scanning help-wanted ads on a computer, Ms. Omete was wearing two hoods and a knitted hat, along with a full-length down jacket. It was cold inside the library.

Outside, the temperature was downright frigid, even by Minnesota standards. The thermometer read minus 15 to minus 20 degrees for most of the day.

A deep freeze not seen in decades swept through the center of the country on Monday — closing schools as far south as Oklahoma as well as some businesses. In a rare move, 3M closed its corporate offices, letting about 10,000 people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area stay home. A spokeswoman, Jacqueline Berry, said it had been at least 10 years since 3M had made a similar move. “It’s brutal out there,” she said. “The decision was made by management in terms of the safety of the employees.”

Video Stoic Chicagoans brave negative 38-degree wind chill for work and for leisure.

Brent McDonald

Brian Korty, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said freezing temperatures could reach as far south as Florida. “This cold air bath, by the time it’s all over, it will cover everything from Rockies to the East Coast,” Mr. Korty said. “It isn’t going to last very long. Still, for most people, it’s the coldest winter they’ve felt in a while.”

Officials across the Midwest have been warning about the coming chill for days, while cities scrambled to recover from back-to-back blizzards that have left some Chicago streets impassable and grocery store shelves empty as people stocked their pantries for yet another day indoors. Temperatures that were 20 to 40 degrees below average were reported in parts of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nebraska.

As Chicago saw one of its coldest days since the 1980s, school officials extended the holiday break for all 400,000 students, closing schools on both Monday and Tuesday. Airlines at O’Hare International Airport pre-emptively canceled 1,600 flights. Garbage pickup was suspended. Sidewalks downtown, usually teeming on weekdays with tourists and workers at lunchtime, seemed all but deserted.

“It’s a matter of life and death,” said Phil Kwiatkowski, president of Pacific Garden Mission, a homeless shelter in Chicago, where more than 1,050 people slept on Sunday night, the most he has seen in years.

Close to 10,000 homes were without power in Illinois on Monday morning, according to the state’s emergency management agency. In Indiana, the number was above 30,000, state officials said, and the National Guard had evacuated at least 450 residents from heatless homes in Indianapolis, according to Marc Lotter, a spokesman for the city.

Sections of two major highways in Northern Indiana — Interstates 65 and 94 — were shut down for most of the day, their traffic cameras displaying post-apocalyptic stretches of frozen highways and drifting snow. And the mayor of Indianapolis, Greg Ballard, issued a travel warning on Sunday night that for a time made it illegal to drive on city roads except in an emergency.

“It’s just not safe for anybody to be on the road,” Mr. Lotter said. “If you broke down, it is a very serious situation for us to get to you. It’s dangerous for our first responders.”

Gov. Mark Dayton of Minnesota — where the National Weather Service could not find a single thermometer above negative 20 degrees on Monday morning — closed all public schools statewide, the first time a Minnesota governor had taken that step in 17 years.

And yet, for some in a region where residents are no strangers to below-zero blasts, life went on. Mass was said at the home cathedral of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. “I told them I was very proud of their bravery for coming in,” the Rev. John Ubel said. Babies were bundled in snowsuits and brought to day care, despite warnings of the dangerous weather.

“They scared me,” Ms. Omete said of the weather forecasters. “But when I see a little sunlight, I always come out.”

Christina Capecchi reported from Minneapolis, and Steven Yaccino from Chicago.